Live
longer pain free! Play the double bass!
Peter
McLachlan
Life
can so quickly change. Bend the wrong
way, trip, foolishly lift something the
wrong way and suddenly, our lives change
direction as we cope with rehabilitation
and pain management. Some time back I
walked into a branch at eye level in the
entrance to the local Coles supermarket
and I spent the week visiting doctors
and specialists wondering if my sight
was going to be restored.
Fortunately
it recovered and I can see well enough
to write this article. Accidents play
a big part but it seems that at times
we are hell bent on our own destruction.
I have had the misfortune of seeing a
number of professional musicians who have
played since their early childhood and
have had to stop playing their instrument
in their 20's, retrain for other employment
and live the rest of their life with a
level of pain from their injuries. It
wasn't a chance accident that caused it,
but rather a lifetime of repetitive strain
on the body, ignoring the pain until it
reached the point of no return.
Some years ago I watched a shared double
bass recital where two professional musicians
each played a ½ hour solo composition.
Both musicians played at the highest musical
standard, pieces of equal difficulty.
At the end of the performance one musician
was a lather of sweat and looked like
he had run a marathon and the other had
a small bead of perspiration but looked
like he could go for another round easily.
As a student who raised extra cash doing
labouring jobs, I was very impressed with
the no sweat approach.
Our approaches to the way we play, are
passed down generation to generation and
drilled into the keen student until we
can't possibly hold our instrument or
bow any other way. Good habits, and potentially
harmful habits, all passed on from generation
to generation from master to student.
One person who escaped this loop of instruction
is Francois Rabbath. Growing up in Syria
he had no teacher and had to invent things
for himself. What evolved was a different
way of approaching double bass playing
that used his body weight and balance
rather than muscle effort to play. Both
of the performing musicians mentioned
above had studied with some of the greatest
bass teachers of our time, however the
performer who made it seem effortless,
had been relearning his technique from
the ground up with Rabbath.
François Rabbath has spent a lifetime
with his bass. He began playing at the
age of 13, (the family band needed a bass
player and he was chosen) and now at 77
years old, he continues to practise every
day and perform frequent concerts around
the world. Being a double bassist has
not only allowed him to travel and earn
a living doing what he loves, but it has
also kept him fit, and in better health
than many people half his age. He suffers
no back or shoulder pain and while many
people his age are becoming more restricted
in their activities, his technical wizardry
on the bass seems to grow each time I
see him. Graeme Strahle wrote in his review
for The Australian in 2003
"Rabbath is a wizard on the double
bass, fingers flying with apparent freeness
all over the fingerboard. Undeniably he
is a virtuoso, making this sometimes intractable,
gruff old instrument dance with the grace
and delicacy of a violin. And that's where
his uniqueness lies: it is the apparent
effortlessness of his sound, a product
even more of his extraordinary fluid bowing
action, that blows away all notions of
the bass being a leaden object requiring
brute force to muscle into action. Quite
simply Rabbath is a self made phenomenon
with no parallels in the modern era "
Robert
Battey from the Washington Post in
a review of Rabbath's concert last month
writes "At 77, this self-taught artist
remains one of the most fascinating and
charismatic string players before the
public. Although he suffered a fall that
affected his left hand just before the
concert, Rabbath played for 80 minutes
without intermission, running through
his many signature works, written by or
for him, including Frank Proto's pyrotechnical
Paganini Variations. His own pieces are
"world music" in the best sense,
blending his Middle Eastern heritage with
the style of his earlier collaborators,
Michel Legrand and Charles Aznavour.
Rabbath's bow technique is the equal of
any violin or cello soloist, as he made
clear in "Chasse à Cour,"
tossing off bariolage, flying staccato,
jete and every other trick in the bowing
arsenal."
"When
we want to attain high proficiency we
ask a continuous and prolonged effort
of the body which, if we are not careful,
causes it to become deformed over the
years."
François Rabbath
Bass players, like everybody, are susceptible
to strains and injuries if they do not
employ sensible posture when they play.
Their backs, necks, shoulders, and arms
are particularly sensitive, and the wrong
posture for a sustained period can leave
them in too much pain to play, permanently.
Perhaps a good test of where you are heading
would be to ask your teacher/mentor or
your teacher's teacher about the aches
and pains they suffer. Take a look at
how they perform in their seventies. Are
they pain free and still enjoying creating
music on their instrument?
If not - figure out if it was an accident
or whether it is a lifetime of poor posture
or technique. |
